Why Viffer Was Stripped of Cash
Written by Renee K | Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
David “Viffer” Peat is predominantly a cash games player, who rarely participates in tournaments. He decided to do so late last month and had tragedy befall him. What happened to him at the Toledo airport is straight out of a Hollywood movie or, as he himself put down in his blog at Two Plus Two, the worst bad beat of his life.
Peat was at his girl friend’s parents’ home at Toledo. Instead of flying with her to Las Vegas he decided to fly alone to Los Angeles for a tournament. Peat managed some cozy moments with his girl friend at the airport before she took her flight. More details on what they did together are in Peat’s original blog.
Peat then went to his gate and was waiting for everyone else to board first. It was then the two DEA guys accosted him, showed him their badges, got him to get off his cell phone and told him to answer their questions. Peat writes that “they played good cop bad cop”. The bad cop wanted to know why he was carrying 15k in cash. He told them that he was a poker pro on the way to a tournament.
The good cop let him go but no sooner was he five feet from the plane the two guys caught up with him again. They took him to the baggage claim area and Peat had to wish goodbye to his flight and his tournament. The DEA guys made Peat empty his pockets and take off his Rolex. The DEA guys took the cash and the Rolex and gave Peat a receipt. They refused to arrest him despite his abusing them. They said that they would be in touch.
This post of Peat drew a great response at Two Plus Two Poker. A number of guys said that they regularly travel with loads of cash. Rekrul wrote, “I’ve traveled so many times with like 40k in my backpack and stuff and never had a problem.” Another guy wrote that for carrying more than 10k a form has to be filled. Though Peat had not filled a form, the problem really was something else. Peat himself revealed this in another post a few days later.
Anyone that has any type of drug related charges on his record and is carrying a lot of cash can have it confiscated by the DEA. Peat wrote, “I have a few possession charges from over 8 years ago they are using. You also have to fit the profile of a drug trafficking person, which I do because I travel lot between LA, NYC and Vegas.” He has got in touch with his lawyers and they say that he would eventually get his stuff back.
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· Written by Renee K · Filed Under Poker Gossip · Comments Off
